Sociological theories of crime include: theories of strain blame crime on personal stressors; theories of social learning blame crime on its social rewards, and see crime more as an institution in conflict with other institutions rather than as in- vidual deviance; and theories of control look at crime as natural and rewarding, and explore the formation of institutions that control crime. Theorists of corruption generally agree that corruption is an expression of the Patron–Client relation...

This book offers a vast conceptual and theoretical exploration of the ways intelligence analysis must change in order to succeed against today's most dangerous combatants and most complex irregular theatres of conflict.Intelligence Analysis: How to Think in Complex Environments fills a void in the existing literature on contemporary warfare by examining the theoretical and conceptual foundations of effective modern intelligence analysis—the type of analysi...

This book examines the theoretical and conceptual foundation of effective modern intelligence collection—the strategies required to support intelligence analysis of the modern, complex operational environments of today's military conflicts or competitive civilian situations such as business.Just as the old rules of conventional warfare and intelligence analysis do not apply fully in the 21st-century environment, neither does the traditional methodology of collectin...

From one of the world’s leading data scientists, a landmark tour of the new science of idea flow, offering revolutionary insights into the mysteries of collective intelligence and social influenceIf the Big Data revolution has a presiding genius, it is MIT’s Alex “Sandy” Pentland. Over years of groundbreaking experiments, he has distilled remarkable discoveries significant enough to become the bedrock of a whole new scientific field: social physics. Humans have more in com...

Designed to help both graduate students and start-up researchers with their own case study research, this book presents 21 individual applications together with cross-referenced discussions of key methodological issues. Many of the applications—including a wide array of single-case studies useful as examples for solo researchers—have been shortened or re-written expressly for this book.

Despite the swift spread of social network concepts and their applications and the rising use of network analysis in social science, there is no book that provides a thorough general introduction for the serious reader. Understanding Social Networks fills that gap by explaining the big ideas that underlie the social network phenomenon. Written for those interested in this fast moving area but who are not mathematically inclined, it covers fundamental concepts, then discusses netwo...

Quantitative research in social science research is changing rapidly. Researchers have vast and complex arrays of data with which to work: we have incredible tools to sift through the data and recognize patterns in that data; there are now many sophisticated models that we can use to make sense of those patterns; and we have extremely powerful computational systems that help us accomplish these tasks quickly. This book focuses on some of the extraordinary work being conducted in computatio...

How effective are public managers as they seek to influence how public organizations deliver policy results? How, and how much, is management related to the performance of public programs? What aspects of management can be distinguished? Can their separable contributions to performance be estimated? The fate of public policies in today's world lies in the hands of public organizations, which in turn are often intertwined with others in latticed patterns of governance. Collectively, these o...

There is a moral to this book, a bit of Confucian wisdom often ignored in social network analysis: "Worry not that no one knows you, seek to be worth knowing." This advice is contrary to the usual social network emphasis on securing relations with well-connected people. Neighbor Networks examines the cases of analysts, bankers, and managers, and finds that rewards, in fact, do go to people with well-connected colleagues. Look around your organization. The individuals doing well tend to be ...

In 1788 John Adams created a sublime ambition for all nations - 'a government of laws and not of men'. In the intervening years we have come to learn that legislation itself works through the interpretations of the many men and women who work on the inside and the outside of the law. Effective regulation thus depends not only on scrupulous legal analysis, with its appeal to precedent, conceptual clarity and argumentation, but also on sound empirical research, which often reveals divers...

The Data Quality Assessment Framework shows you how to measure and monitor data quality, ensuring quality over time. You'll start with general concepts of measurement and work your way through a detailed framework of more than three dozen measurement types related to five objective dimensions of quality: completeness, timeliness, consistency, validity, and integrity. Ongoing measurement, rather than one time activities will help your organization reach a new level of data quality. This pla...

This book contains the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Modeling and Simulation in Engineering, Economics and Management, MS 2016, held in Teruel, Spain, in July 2016. The event was co-organized by the AMSE Association and the University of Zaragoza through the GESES Research Group, with the support of the SoGReS-MF Research Group from University Jaume I. This edition of the conference paid special attention to modeling and simulation in diverse fields of business ma...